G: Gearbox (Twin) Unusual Gearchange Problem?

BigEd

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I had a short spin on the Rapide yesterday afternoon, shower dodging as we were having an on-off showery day. After a few miles, the gearchange seemed a bit strange and eventually, I couldn't change at all. The gearchange lever just went up or down with nothing else happening. Headed for home mostly in top gear, not a problem as with careful throttle use I could pull gently from 20 ish mph. When I got back into town I had to do a bit of juggling with the gear indicator to select a suitable lower gear.
I pulled the gear cover off this morning and found the G66 lever was able to spin on its shaft. The splines on the shaft look OK but the mating splines in the lever were almost non-existent. A lot of this bike came back from Argentina so maybe it was a homemade repair/replacement or someone with an ill-adjusted gearchange mechanism had heavy boots! I found two spares in the shed and one of these had a couple of small welds securing the shaft to the lever. Anyone else come across this?
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Garth Robinson

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I had a short spin on the Rapide yesterday afternoon, shower dodging as we were having an on-off showery day. After a few miles, the gearchange seemed a bit strange and eventually, I couldn't change at all. The gearchange lever just went up or down with nothing else happening. Headed for home mostly in top gear, not a problem as with careful throttle use I could pull gently from 20 ish mph. When I got back into town I had to do a bit of juggling with the gear indicator to select a suitable lower gear.
I pulled the gear cover off this morning and found the G66 lever was able to spin on its shaft. The splines on the shaft look OK but the mating splines in the lever were almost non-existent. A lot of this bike came back from Argentina so maybe it was a homemade repair/replacement or someone with an ill-adjusted gearchange mechanism had heavy boots! I found two spares in the shed and one of these had a couple of small welds securing the shaft to the lever. Anyone else come across this?
View attachment 35746
I have a couple that have been repaired with spots of weld.I think there is something in Richardson's book somewhere that mentioned this.There isn't a lot of room there to weld.
 

oexing

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I made a new SS shaft for the homemade gear lever and brazed the lot without spline I think. Also new stops for the linkage, not by those blade springs but by the alu block doweled to the big plate, closer to where it matters.

Vic
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Marcus Bowden

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VOC Member
Clean it up countersink the hole, add Easy-flow flux paste it to heat it and apply silver solder, mine hasn't moved in decades.
bananaman.
 

oexing

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Why do you think I´d have to move the alu stops ? I dremeled them just for exact gear shifts so should stay put for a long time unless I change gearbox contents. I was not impressed that lever stops were by the pin and blade springs squeezed in that alu block under the gear lever. I did not keep the old eccentric part with hexagon, had only minimal face for bolting up the lot. So made large fat SS plates and just a split washer under them to keep the new eccentric in position once happy with gearlever action.

Vic
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